


Rebooting Hope

by Hours_Gone_By



Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2019 [15]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers (Live Action Movies), Transformers Generation One, Transformers – All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe – Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe – Dystopia, Au Yeah August 2019, Dystopia, Escape, Gen, Repairs, Resistance, Slavery, Stasis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: TheArkleft Cybertron and crashed on Earth, but while the Decepticons woke up again, the Autobots never did. Now, the human resistance is desperately seeking any means of fighting back, and finds the downed starship…and its crew.
Series: AU Yeah AUgust 2019 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1441549
Comments: 10
Kudos: 43





	Rebooting Hope

**Author's Note:**

> Day 24 – Dystopia  
> \---  
> The problem with this prompt is: how do you make Cybertronian society any more dystopian than IDW did? The only answer I could really come up with was to not use Cybertronian society at all. So, what if Starscream had impulse control for once and didn’t take the parting shots that made Prime fall into Teletraan One’s repair beam? What would the world look like then?

Carly hunkered down behind the crates of raw ore, taking advantage of the alien overseer's momentary inattention. Charlie, slightly older than Carly but a more recent arrival, joined her, and they spoke in hasty whispers.

"Did you get it?" Carly asked.

Charlie nodded and handed Carly a slip of paper with directions written on it in code. "It's all here, we just need to get someone outside who can get there."

"Great! Chip and I have a plan." Carly tucked the paper inside her bra, which didn't so much provide support anymore but still made a good hiding place. "Did Memo…?"

Charlie shook her head. "I don't know. I just found it in the drop." There was a sound from nearby and they stopped themselves from starting guiltily. It was always best these days to _not_ draw attention to oneself. "Time to go."

"I hope this works," Carly murmured, just barely catching Charlie's whispered 'me too.'

* * *

Chip rolled down the ramp when the eighteen-wheeler stopped and gave the driver a brief wave of thanks. The driver waited for a moment until Chip had gotten himself into the woods. It was easier going than he'd expected: the Decepticons had flattened a strip of ground to act as a road, though they hadn't paved it. It was definitely easier than going through the trees. The word in the resistance was that the Decepticons had been trucking _something_ out of here. The best guess was tech or supplies, though they'd stopped a year or so back before anyone could get a decent report back. The thought was that it was alien tech, and the hope was that there was some left, something humanity could handle, reverse-engineer, something they could use to fight back! At least, Chip hoped so. Aside from some intel and a strung-thin human resistance, they didn't have much besides hope right now.

Chip had been given some idea of what to expect, but seeing it, actually _seeing_ where the Decepticons had come from, wasn't something he could have been prepared for. It even took a moment for him to really _register_ what he saw: the thrusters of a giant spaceship that was half-buried beneath the mountain.

"Wow!" he breathed, awed despite having spent the last year of his life around giant alien robots who could transform.

Chip stayed still for a moment, staring at it, before something rustled in the trees behind him, startling him out of his trance. Right, the mission. He just had to cross an empty expanse that, if the intel Agent Burns had passed along was right, wasn't currently under surveillance.

"Well," he muttered to himself, bravely heading forward. "Here goes everything…"

But, if Agent Burns had been wrong and there _was_ surveillance, either no one was paying attention right then, or, if they were, they didn't care. Maybe they just didn't think he was enough of a threat. Maybe they were just waiting to let him get close, think he'd made it, before taking him out. Chip tried not to think about it, but his mind raced with possibilities, each one worse than the last. But, he did make it to the entrance of the massive vessel and cautiously entered.

The inside of the ship was dark, and Chip reluctantly turned on his flashlight, sweeping the beam across the massive interior. He could see where the Decepticons had cleared away just enough rubble to move out whatever they wanted. Chip slowly rolled down the aisle they'd made, awed by the size and unnerved by the silence.

H got to the end of the aisle, deep inside the ship, and sucked in a breath, freezing in terror. His light caught the shape, familiar by now, of an alien leg. But, there was no response, no reaction, to his presence, and after a moment, Chip got up the nerve to slowly move the beam of the flashlight upwards. It revealed a big alien, as big as the one called Megatron, slumped forward over a computer console of some kind. The alien's eyes weren't lit, and Chip held the beam of the flashlight steady on their face until he was sure there wouldn't be a reaction. There wasn't. Was the alien dead, he wondered? He hadn't heard of anything yet that would kill one of them, not without doing a _lot_ more damage than he was seeing. But, if they were still alive, wouldn't the Decepticons have woken them up? Chip didn't have time to worry about that, though. He had a giant ship to scout for useful tech, and a report to make and dead-drop after that. They'd set up one not far from here, so now that he was out, he didn't have to try and get back into the work camp he'd escaped from.

Chip kept exploring, working his way around debris and rocks and more inert alien bodies. There were large banks of computers around the periphery of the room, their monitors dark and, in many cases, cracked. There were a couple of layers of damage to them, some that looked ancient, maybe from whenever the ship had crashed, places where rocks had hit them or perhaps minerals had built up, and some that was much newer. Chip guessed that the Decepticons had done the damage taking equipment they wanted, or maybe just to make sure it couldn’t be used.

But there had to be something. There just _had_ to! Chip examined some wires that had been yanked out and left hanging within arms' reach. It wouldn't be that hard to reconnect them, and while Chip didn't know what would happen, well, anything was worth a try. He hadn't found anything that might be useful so far. What did he have to lose?

Chip twisted the wires back together and held his breath for a moment, listening. He didn't know what he expected to hear just…something. But there wasn't anything to hear.

There _was_ something to see, though. A screen flickered dimly to life, the image fritzing around some cracks spiderwebbing through a corner of the glass. Symbols Chip didn't recognize flashed rapidly across it, too fast for him to read even if he could have. They looked a little like Decepticon characters, but not quite. It almost looked like they'd started out the same and changed over time. What really startled him, though, was the _voice_. It used the alien' language, but humans had never even gotten close to translating that. Then, it said something that kind of sounded like a computer modem finalizing a connection. Chip had only gotten to use modems a few times, but he remembered the noise. At least it didn't sound unfriendly? Probably. They'd all seen the news footage from the early days, before the Decepticons took over. Megatron could be charming when he wanted to be.

"I-I'm sorry," Chip stammered out, the fact that he was alone and surrounded by aliens pushing down on him. "I don't understand."

The display on the screen changed, rapidly flipping through the few transmissions that humans still made. Then the voice spoke again, and this time Chip understood it.

"Local language acquired. Greetings, sapient."

"Uh…" Chip said uncertainly. "…hi…"

"Decepticon transmissions detected. Scanning for Autobot signals."

"Uh…" Chip frowned. Every human knew what Decepticon was by now, he was pretty sure, but… "What's an 'auto-bot?'"

"The Autobots are from the planet Cybertron. They are the enemies of the Decepticons."

'Enemies of the Decepticons' sounded good, at least to start with. But…

"They're dead," Chip muttered, slumping. For a moment he'd thought, he'd _hoped_ …but maybe the voice could tell him something, give him _some_ kind of information. Not as good as getting giant aliens to fight giant aliens but _something_ to give them a chance. But the voice answered him even though he hadn't asked a question.

"Negative. Autobots are alive and in stasis. Autobots are damaged. Repairs are possible. Assistance is required to facilitate repairs."

Chip's head jerked up, and he stared at the monitor, daring to feel real hope for the first time in he didn't even remember how long. "Just tell me what to do!"

The voice, which called itself Teletraan I, needed at least one of the aliens moved into the path of something it called a 'repair beam.' Of course, it wasn't going to be easy to do that. Everything in the ship, which Teletraan I told him was called the _Ark_ , was scaled for Cybertronians, the name of the Autobots' and the Decepticons' species. It took more than one human to move any of it, and it definitely took more than two to get the robot Teletraan wanted online first moved. Teletraan said that the robot's name was Optimus Prime, and he was the leader of the Autobots and sworn enemy to Megatron. What made it extra difficult is that he was also the _biggest_.

Getting enough resistance members plus equipment to the _Ark_ without arousing suspicion took time. Chip had hoped that Carly and Charlie would be able to show, but three humans disappearing from the same work camp so close together was too risky. Memo showed up, letting Chip finally meet him in person. He was accompanied by a man Chip didn't know who called himself Sparkplug, and Agent Burns himself. They didn't have complicated equipment, but a block-and-tackle worked just as well. It wouldn't be a comfortable landing for this Optimus Prime robot, but Chip just hoped he'd be okay with it since it got him back online.

If Teletraan I was right and this worked, anyway.

"You sure this is going to fix him?" Memo asked Chip as they watched Sparkplug and Agent Burns wrestle ropes into place around the big alien.

Chip shrugged, trying to hide his uncertainty. "Teletraan I said this repair beam thing is what woke the Decepticons up. If it'd work for them, it should work for the Autobots as well. It _has_ to."

They did their best, but Optimus Prime still landed with a _clang_ that made them all start. But the thing Teletraan said was a repair beam came on and, after a few long, tense minutes, Optimus Prime stood up. He said something to Teletraan and paused, then looked at them in consideration before kneeling down

"I am Optimus Prime," he said, and something about his voice made Chip feel better right away, "the leader of the Autobots. Teletraan has told me what the Decepticons have done to your world. I want you to know, we are here to help."

And for the first time in years, Chip really felt that there was hope. This time, he told himself fiercely, he wouldn't lose it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I nicked Chip's escape and journey to the _Ark_ from _Megatron's Master Plan Part 2_. :)


End file.
